a design retreat with Stefanie Japel at Daniel O’Connell’s Restaurant – Alexandria, VA

Learn about all of the components of a top down sweater and how to make them really fit!

Saturday & Sunday, November 6-7, 2010

11 am – 6 pm each day

$255 per person. Cost includes meals and 10 hours of workshop time.

Register online or by calling 703-664-0344.

In this workshop, Top Down Sweater Design expert Stefanie Japel will lead you through the process of designing your own Top Down Sweater.  This workshop will take you through the entire sweater-designing process, from Inspiration through Sketch, Schematic, and Pattern.

We’ll start our designs by learning to take accurate figure measurements, and answer the question:  “Which figure measurements are really necessary in knitting a sweater?”
HINT: It’s a LOT more than just the chest measurement!

You will then learn to create a Custom Shaping Profile for yourself or for anyone else for whom you may knit, and use this set of measurements to draft a perfectly-fitting pattern (and how to use it to alter already published patterns).

You’ll learn professional tips and tricks to creating sketches and schematics, and see how to turn your vision of the perfect sweater into a reality.

About Stefanie Japel

Stefanie Japel is a scientist turned knitwear designer and the mother to two daughters, ages 2 and 6 months.  Stefanie is best known for her book, Fitted Knits, and for bringing the Top Down Raglan sweater into vogue, and even creating a Top Down Raglan Shawl.  Stefanie’s designs are decidedly feminine, with interesting shaping details.  Stefanie has recently launched her own Online Knitting Studio, pioneering the Video Classroom Revolution currently underway in the knitting community.

Materials

• White paper for sketching
• Drawing pencil
• Tape Measure
• Calculator
• Notebook or paper for taking lecture notes
• Stitch dictionaries or stitch pattern swatches
• Any design ideas, examples of sweaters that you like, photos from magazines, the internet, etc.  These can be either entire sweaters that you like the complete look of, or perhaps examples of necklines, sleeve shapes, colors, textures
• At least one ball of your sweater’s yarn and appropriate needles, so that you can do some swatching to test your designs in class.